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| Twin City carnage |
Fake news is what he would call it if delivered by any other commentator but as the stench of the fires and fury following the Minneapolis murder percolate through the United States, there is that moment when the citizens of America can finally say, "Gotcha".
Like many others, I had doubted that someone with such a loose understanding of ethics and so lacking in humanity or empathy as Donald Trump could survive more than two years. I also hoped that the damage he wreaked might be possible to rectify, although not by Vice President Mike Pence. The United States still had a reputation as "the land of the free", although its failure to address inequalities, the dominant force of its global corporations, its interference in foreign affairs, and the sale of weapons to autocratic regimes were all corroding the goodwill from many nations. Trump's time in office has simply turbo charged these characteristics and the increasingly dysfunctional constitution has made America not 'Great Again' but generated an antipathy from citizens around the world as well as undermining global institutions such as the United Nations, the World Health Organisation and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In the years since Trump's election, I have been gratified by that noblest of gestures by many Americans that I have met in the UK or when on holiday in France and Italy. They have apologised for their President and spoken with a refreshing frankness about the rancour that exists in their beloved country. I feel privileged to have enjoyed its remarkable landscapes and witnessed the scale of human endeavour in the States but it is not somewhere that I would contemplate visiting again as it trashes its environment, violates the dignity of many of its citizens, encourages more firearms and worships Mammon, whilst hiding behind a mask of Christianity.
As ever, the hope for some restitution lies in the good sense of many of its states, cities and counties when they are empowered to act independently from the behemoths of the American Constitution. Many of them have shown an understanding of Coronavirus that eludes the warped mindset of the President and his followers. In the past we have been assured that the American Constitution would provide the checks on the power of the President; that myth has been exploded by President Trump. It is time to eliminate the stranglehold of Corporate America and their lobbyists who have furloughed democracy by bankrolling the elections of the President, Congress and Senate. This charade of sponsored federal elections demeans and diminishes the democratic rights of its citizens.
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| Apocalypse Now in Minneapolis |
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